Suchi. Three kilometres in the air, a tiny shadow plummeting through the moonlit sky.

One last trick had been played on Henry by the over-sized boar, intent on killing him. The bird’s eye view of Suchi seen through the wormhole portal had been from the actual exit point rather than a stylistic choice on the part of the game-developers to represent the destination.

So, currently, Henry was in a free-fall without a parachute, racing towards the earth at 200 kilometres per hour.

But the boar's trick had been pointless. As before, when Henry'd dared to charge at the massive thing, he had the security of a Spelltome reinforcing his melee stats. With a Vitality bonus of 115, the item granted him the resilience of a fully-decked level 48 character, or, in real-world terms, made him about 30 times more durable than an average, squishy human bag of flesh. Slamming into the ground at terminal velocity would be as harmless as a friendly slap to the belly.

Henry, over-levelled and over-geared for the challenges of a beginner's tutorial, didn't have to fear fall damage, nor any of the other noob threats in this Starting Zone.

Danger-free, worry-free, he rejoiced in successfully dodging another annoying quest. Unsummoning his mask, he allowed his cheeks to flap delightfully in the easy breeze. Splaying out his limbs, he played with the wind, adjusting his body's airflow profile to glide back and forth like an acrobatic hawk.

"Oh, this isn't too bad," he remarked upon the skydiving with pleasant surprise. "I could do more of this."

Wasn't life fun when you let go of your woes?

Even Suchi could have its charms. If you just bent your head slightly to avoid the eyesore of The Slums, the land made for a scenic view: the harbour glittering in the light of Saana's moons, the gentle, white-sand coastline, the expanse of the plains with its galloping herds of wildlife.

Now, this was a retirement, blissfully skydiving, blissfully admiring the priceless things like nature from a variety of expensive-to-reach angles.

But, while Henry was trying to figure out the mechanics of aerial flipping, his celebration came to an end.

Congratulations! You are the first player to complete King Torc’s Prison (Tier 0 - Level 2 – 500 Players - Global)! As a global achievement, your accomplishment will be announced to the world!

"...what the hell?" he muttered in disbelief.

That notification should not have appeared since he'd refrained from killing the boar. Did the stubborn beast bash its skull against the floor after his departure? Maybe it bled out trying too hard to remove the spear?

If it killed itself, then was he still technically on this questline? Henry had no clue. In none of his previous adventures had he encountered anything quite like this. Saana's quests were trash, demanding, convoluted, annoying, but they weren't usually this...persistent. Normally, he could just ignore them.

For now, a hilltop rapidly approaching him, Henry put aside the question and altered the global announcement notification, hiding his name and delaying it for later. Stopping it completely wasn’t an option. In a week real-time, an instance dungeon of the encounter would be produced that players could do repeatedly. The system insisted on announcing such events for the sake of fairness.

While repositioning to land, another complication arose, Henry noticing a black, mammoth-sized object falling directly above him.

"...the boar?" he muttered again in disbelief.

Panicking, the moment his feet hit the ground, he rolled to spread out the force, then rolled again, narrowly avoiding the obliteration of his initial landing point, which exploded as if walloped by a meteor, dust and stone showering everywhere.

Henry, collecting his wits in an instant, grasping a shield-Spelltome on his chest, stood up and cautiously approached the boar through the dust. Sticking out of the monster's chest, thrust through its rib cage and into its heart, was the same spear Henry'd stabbed into its leg. King Torc's eyes had lost the rosy-pink glow of Sentience - dead.

It couldn't have impaled itself, Henry knew. By the end, the beast had exhausted too much strength to remove the spear. Someone else had done this.

Or something else.

Henry'd already, roughly, figured out the big bad guy behind this scheme when the boar had first mentioned a prophecy of them fighting. 'The Great Black One', based on the name and the click language or 'Heartspeech' King Torc had spoken, was an Imbahalaala, a spooky, telepathic shadow creature. They were quite powerful, at least Tier-12 by his estimation, Saana's Tier-11 Lowgods steering clear of them.

However, the fact an Imbahalaala would involve itself with him was mysterious. When doing his quest for the ability, he'd spent a while hanging out with them learning their click language, and all the ones he’d encountered were indifferent to human matters. In fact, they were indifferent to everything. They didn’t eat or sleep or socialise. Some would spend centuries standing in one spot acting as bird perches. Even their attacks were an automatic response when they detected violence nearby. Their cognitive functioning appeared to be exceptionally low, beneath that of a tortoise. Thus, the idea of one giving out prophecies was highly unusual.

Henry guessed The Great Black One was a unique, smarter variant of an Imbahalaala, much like King Torc had been a more advanced version of the simple boars.

From the collage of oddities this morning, one might conclude, given the timing and the language similarities, that The Great Black One was another name for The Vilified One, whose voice had been heard in the booms during the rabbit ritual. However, that second guy had existed in the previous version of Saana, whereas the Imbahalaalas were a new addition. Of course, this didn’t eliminate the possibility of some other connection between them.

Henry's quest logs didn't provide any further clues.

He studied the spear in King Torc's heart, wondering what the creature had meant by it. “Warning, framing, or...”

...confirm—

Not allowing himself to get carried away, he transferred the spear back to his inventory, it being a Tier 5-2 weapon whose material could be traced to him.

As for King Torc's body, it wouldn’t fit. Given that this questline seemed to involve matters far beyond the recruitment tournament, he contacted a guild member to send a clean-up crew, dumping the responsibility on them.

Just as he was finishing delivering that message, something shoved him from behind, sending him toppling forward, right in the direction of the over-sized boar’s face.

An ominous feeling rising like acid from his stomach, Henry fought to regain his balance. However, once upon a time, they'd called him The Cripple because his reaction speed sucked, and, today, it still sucked.

Try as he might, he could not correct the fall in time. With his mask removed to enjoy the sky-diving breeze, his naked lips pressed against the dead boar’s snout. In a flash of lights, this morbid kiss incited a herd of glowing soul-motes to charge out of the boar’s corpse into Henry's mouth, down into the rusty ring on his finger.

The Ring of a Thousand Souls claims King Torc.

Henry sighed in his soul.

This, 'coincidentally', was another feature of the ring. Not only could it create fake souls, it could also 'claim' real ones, although he'd never figured out how to access them.

All the precautions he’d taken...all his self-control...worthless.

What an obvious setup...

In frustration, he span to face the bastard who'd shoved him. To his surprise, though, he found the donkey he'd forgotten about and a wormhole portal through which it'd been sent back.

Henry stared blankly at the portal. Looking at him back through it, framed by the background of King Torc's throneroom, was a featureless black head, devoid of any apparent expression, any feeling. Impersonal as a mirror, it seemed to reflect Henry's cold examination of it.

The creature clicked, and the portal sealed shut.

Henry continued staring for a few seconds.

Yeah, that was one of the Imbahalaalas he'd just been thinking about.

It showing itself basically confirmed his theory.

Then, again, given the species' abilities, it might've intentionally confirmed his theory.

Henry, just thinking about the number of possible layers, felt his head begin to hurt. "Stupid meddling shadow demons. And you."

He turned to the donkey, wanting to take his frustration out on it. However, the beast looked wretched, like it was stuck in a nightmare.

Henry sighed sympathetically. "I guess you’re now involved in my problems. And you didn't even get the fun skydiving break...how tragic."

Below the hill, a mob of noobs were sprinting to check out the crash site. Henry, swapping back to his previous monkey-mask outfit, led the donkey to a bush and hid.